New Health Care system under way in R’fontein
Health care in communities for the future looks bright.
Aaron Motoaledi, Health Minister for South Africa recently visited Brazil and was so impressed by their health care system that he came back to implement it in South Africa.
What the system involves is Community Health Workers (CHW) entering houses in the community houses to identify health and other related issues.
CHWs are lead by professional nurses that are called team leaders. Should CHWs encounter any problems within the community then they can report it to team leaders to address the issue.
The initiative is ward based thus it involves ward Councillors and the community itself. CHWs also need to attend ward meetings in order to get feedback from what the Councillors about what the concern of the people is.
The service that will be provided is aimed at bringing services to the community such as having a system in place where clinic queues will be shortened and the workload on nurses will be reduced.
The Department of Health is working hand-in-hand with the Randfontein Local Municipality to make sure that necessary services are carried out to the community.
Patricia Matuwane, MCC for Social Services, participated in the programme training in order to understand the new system. She attended two full weeks of training to fully understand it. At the end of the training, she received a certificate like the rest of the trainees.
There are some challenges that CHWs faces are unresponsive residents. Matuwane is urging the community to allow CWHs into their homes as it will only simplify services made available to them. She also appeals to Ward Councillors to give CHWs a chance to speak to the community about health issues.
